Jumping Beef

Pretty shweet semana! 

We finally have a baptism this week! On Wednesday our investigator (who is 9) is getting baptised! We are excited because his taking the lessons has helped strengthen his less-active/part member family! They are doing family home evening now and making a real effort to get out to church.

We committed our other investigator with a baptismal date, Ruben, to live the Word of Wisdom, and he was super down! He gave us his coffee and we dumped it, I think that's the 3rd coffee canister I have dumped on my mission, lol. He also tried to give us his really expensive alcohol but we told him we couldn't really take it, so he dumped it out on the ground! It's crazy how much people can change when they start on the right path.

Dumping a member's coffee stash

We taught another family recently, and as we were teaching them they told us that they came to the conclusion that they need to be baptised! The only problem is that they both work on Sundays, so we are working on that now. Also! We used our bikes this week! It has been a while, but it was fun. We might have to use them a bit more often, as we are starting to run short on miles for our car. It's a great time to bike. Pretty much 90's every day! (Eww)

After a day of biking in the heat.

Had some awesome food at a Peruvian members house called Lomo Saltado(Jumping Beef), it was really good, and then I made the mistake of dumping about a pound of Peruvian hot sauce on it and I proceeded to die. Probably the hottest thing I have ever had. But it was still really good so I got seconds.

Learning a lot about diligence and patience this week. When you try your hardest to get someone to make commitments and they say they are going to and then they flake out, it sucks! It makes me realize how much Heavenly Father want's us to make correct decisions and how happy he is when we do! 

Cool Harley seen in our area.

Not much else this week, Hope everyone has a good one! 

Sorry these pictures are bad, there's really not much to take pictures of in Sparks. gonna keep looking for stuff tho!

Feliz Dia De Los Padres!

Lot's of great stuff went down this week! Still reflecting back on our great trip to the Temple in Reno.

A snapshot from our recent Temple visit.

We went to a place called Texas Meltz here in Reno on Monday, it was lit. All of their sandwiches are named after cities in Texas! I was going to get the Plano (cold deli sandwich, also where I'm from), but I was in the mood for a melt, so I snagged the Austin Melt. It tasted just as liberal as it sounds! No but it was really good.

New sandwich place down the road from our apartment. The Texas city names of the sandwiches make me homesick.

Speaking of food, I have had some great Latin foods recently. I have recently had posole, arepas, carne asada, tres leches, microwave burritos, and tons of other sick authentic morreno cuisine. This diet is really hard to keep up when we get fed like crazy. Like seriously we were given about 8 pounds of tres leches cake on Friday. :/rip

But we were working really hard this week and happened to talk to alot of non-hispanic people on the street, so we ended up giving a total of 6 referrals to the English speaking Sisters in our area, and they found a couple investigators from them I believe! #theyOweUs

Pic from last weeks temple trip. It was really windy up there so I apologize for whatever the heck my hair is doing.

We recently taught a less active named Sergio about temples and told his that his time had come to start preparing for the temple, and he was like wuuuuuuuuut. But he's super pumped, and his non-member wife may be getting baptised soon! Also we were able to find 3 new investigators this week, so we were happy. Now we just need to get some of our investigators back on track so we can see them progress.

Also, I gave a talk in church this Sunday about the relationship between Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ as father and son. First all-Spanish talk, yay!

But everything has been great in Sparks! Happy Father's day to everyone!

Sorry for lack of pics. not much to take pictures of in Sparks unfortunately! 

Picnics, Sickness, and Temples!

Had a wonderful week this week!

Elder Gurr and myself getting ready to head out.

P-day we had an awesome picnic as a zone where we were able to play frisbee and sand volleyball. Of course I brought my a-game to volleyball, but unfortunately I was bringing so much heat that I burnt me feet (bars). No but actually the sand was so hot that I got like heat blisters so RIP my feet. Thanks everyone for paying your tithing so we get to drive a car!

A view of Reno and the mountains from Sparks.

Then the next day I unfortunately caught a missionary bug and got pretty sick. Complete with projectile vomiting! It had been a while! And I feel bad but it was obviously super contagious, because then Elder Gurr got it the next day, then my companion Elder Gonzalez got it the day after that. But luckily it's a short lasted sickness so I was able to work later that day!

Attending a Temple visit with one of my Gardnerville members as she received her endowments.

Elder Gonzalez and I at the Temple with fellow missionaries.

The Reno Temple.

THEN!!!! One of my old less actives that I was teaching in Gardnerville went to the Reno Temple to receive her endowments, and I received permission to go with her and another missionary that taught her, and it was sick! She had an incredible experience and thanked me profusely for helping her get there. It was a wonderful reminder to me that I am out here doing the Lord's work, bring happiness and peace to all who need it. I love this work! Speaking of, we set another investigator with a baptismal date this week. His name is Carlos, and he is a roommate of a recent convert. Before our lesson had even started in which we had planned to set him with a date, he asked what all he needed to do to be baptised! So that was easy! But of course there must be opposition in all things, and this week it manifested itself in that Victor and Zulma will have to put off their baptism for a little bit until we get some things figured out. But Zulma apparently had an amazing dream recently in which there was a tree that was unfortunately not growing. She was watering it and trying to help it in any way she could but nothing was working. Then, she said, we (the missionaries) came in and watered the tree, and it began to grow. She said that she believes that we are feeding her the truth so she can grow her faith. Sounds a lot like Alma 32 huh?! So they are prepared and will be baptised soon.

The Sparks Zone.

I was on exchanges with my District Leader Elder Torres on Friday, and we had a crazy cool miracle. We were just routinely visiting a former investigator, and she answers the door and they swear they both recognize each other from somewhere. Eventually Elder Torres realize that she was literally the first investigator he had ever had, and met her like his second day in the mission. She had moved from Reno (where he taught her) to Sparks like a year ago and we happened to decide to go visit her that very day. Miracles!

Nothing else really. I bought a jump rope Monday and have been using it pretty much daily along with some other band/body weight exercises. Gotta get my swole back somehow.

#DileAdiosAmiLonja

Que transitas por tus venitas gueras?

Everything is going great here in Espars! The work is really taking off. We found five more investigators this week! And it's great because they are all in families. It's so great to see these families increasing their faith in Christ so much. Speaking of, we have a double baptism scheduled for this weekend, a mother and son, Victor y Zulma! We are super excited for them, and they are so ready! We miiiight actually have to move it to next week purely for logistical reasons, but they are going to be baptised very soon regardless.

Los Elders.

Yesterday was fast Sunday, and it was a good way to kick start our diet. We bought about 10 pounds of chicken and 5 pounds of rice, and we pretty much cooked it all the other night and froze it, so now whenever we need a quick lunch, we can throw those in the microwave and have a good healthy cheap almuerzo. Hopefully I don't get too tired of chicken and rice tho.

All of our foods.

On Tuesday night, we were pranking some other Elders who live near us by making their bike rack lean over slightly(#prankd), and all the sudden a little Mexican flies in through my car window as I was driving away, then after all the dust settled I realized it was my papi Elder Guzman! He is those Elders' Zone Leader and they were on exchanges, so we got to talk and stuff for a while. Fun!

Guzmancito

There is this area in our area that missionaries haven't visited for a long time because it looks like it's all industrial stuff, so there would be no houses there. Well Elder Gonzalez and I felt inspired to drive around it (since we had some extra miles), and we found a super neat-o little trailer park! And as far as trailer parks go, this one was super cool and nice, especially for a trailer park that it full of Hispanics. Since this whole area has like zero potential investigators or former investigators or even members on record, we kind of just started from ground zero and tracted/street contacted a bunch of people yesterday! We didn't even get like a fifth of the way through because we kept having awesome conversations with tons of people! We have like 3 return appointments next week for that area now, yay!

We visited some members on Thursday, and they had these freaking perrecitos (babby dugs) that were sooo adorable, like 2 weeks old or something! We tried to get a picture, but apparently whenever Elder Gonzalez gets a camera in his hand, he loses half of his brain cells, because in all the pictures it just looks like I'm holding a little black turd or something because it's so blurry.

Count the cats.

My Spanish is improving quickly and It's really exciting. Elder Gonzalez and I are setting apart certain times to only talk to each other in Spanish, and it helps a lot. As well, I made a little goofy mistake the other day at dinner. So I was reading a scripture and it said "Por tanto ..." which means like, "And behold," or, "Therefore," but I said "Por tonto," which means basically, "Because you/they are stupid." So the Argentinian family there got a good laugh out of that. But it is improving poco a poco. And I got some compliments when I bore my testimony yesterday. Maybe its just pity for the new gabacho, pero me vale.

Not much else is goin on other than the work here is amazing and I love paisanos.
#OralePues, DiosTeBendiga